Andrew Martin begins his account of the latest Pepsi quarterly report like this: “Tap water is making a comeback.  That’s bad news for PepsiCo’s profits.”  Sales are down 10%.  Why?  People aren’t buying as much soda or bottled water.  Score one for the environmental movement.

The Environmental Working Group says the plastic bottles are bad for the environment but that’s not all.  Its latest report tests the waters and finds plenty of fertilizer and drug residues in them. Oh great.

The American Dietetic Association says plastic water bottles are OK to use and there is no need to worry about them.  Aren’t you relieved?  No conflicts of interest are noted in this report, but I hear rumors, as yet unconfirmed.

ConsumerReports.com has an especially understandable description of the plastic bottle situation. If the recycling number is 7, the plastic could be polycarbonate and leaching bisphenol A endocrine disrupters. It says recycling numbers 1, 2, or 5 are better bets. The Environmental Working Group says bisphenol A is the “signature compound in the fight for reform of the nation’s toxic chemicals laws. It contaminates nearly all Americans, it causes toxic effects at very low doses…yet the EPA has only the most clumsy and convoluted authority to control its use and reduce exposure to populations at risk.”

Thanks to Hugh Joseph for forwarding this Brandweek article about Fiji water with a subject line saying, “You could never make this up.” Fiji Water, it seems, has a new $10 million ad “carbon negative, globally positive” campaign to explain its carbon neutrality. Hmmm. The last I heard, Fiji was about 8,000 food miles away and plastic bottles were causing all kinds of environmental problems.

And now it seems that plastic bottles are also causing health problems, particularly from leaching of the endocrine disrupter, bisphenol A. Canada is all set to ban this chemical in general and has just banned it from baby bottles. The FDA is under pressure to do the same or at least set limits for it. And Nalgene says it won’t use it anymore.

Maybe Fiji Water bottles don’t use polycarbonate plastics (with bisphenol A) but it looks like any bottled water needs some re-thinking, no?

So now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have reviewed the literature on claims that drinking 8 glasses of water a day makes you healthier. Their conclusion: not really (except under conditions of excessive heat, exercise, or illness). This is old news–you get plenty of water from whatever you are drinking and what’s naturally in food–but it’s bad news for health claims made by bottled water manufacturers. They, as you might expect, do not have nice things to say about this research.

Bottled water is the target of environmental campaigns in the U.K as well as the U.S. My namesake, the Nestlé Corporation, appears to be under particular attack.  Acording to the British government, tap water “requires 300 times less energy than bottled water and does not create bottled packaging waste.”   I wonder how the company plans to rebut that argument. 

I thought we were all done with the thoroughly discredited notion that extra-oxygenated water conferred special health benefits, but no such luck. It’s back with a vengeance and $4 million in advertising. This is one you can do at home (try shaking the bottle!).

The bottled water industry must be really, really worried. Today’s New York Times has a full-page ad from the International Bottled Water Association promoting the health benefits of bottled water (”So, as far as we’re concerned, the drink in everyone’s purse, backpack, and lunch box should be water”), its use in emergencies, and its environmental friendliness (”The bottles our member companies produce are 100% recylable”). You will be pleased to know that the Association supports “new, more comprehensive recycling laws to reduce the amount of plastic waste in our environment.” The Association says: “We realize that there are many different points of view on these issues. We want to hear your thoughts.” They do? They should read today’s letters to the editor. If you want them to hear your thoughts, you can do so on their site. What do full-page ads in the Times cost? $80,000? That’s a lot of bottled water.

Thanks Eric for posting an article from the July 27 Los Angeles Times under the Diet Drinks category, for lack of a better place to put it. I hope this posting fixes that problem. PepsiCo, it seems, will now label Aquafina bottled water with its origin–”public water source,” meaning tap water (Coke’s Dasani water, of course, also comes from public water supplies). Bottled water is so amazing to talk about that I devote an entire chapter of What to Eat to that topic. The L.A. Times piece covers the big issues: energy cost, corporate control of water, creation of massive amounts of plastic trash, and the one that I find most troubling–the undermining of confidence in public water supplies and public commitment to maintaining water supplies of high quality. The article quotes an investment analyst saying that Coke and Pepsi do not make a lot of profit on bottled water. I find that hard to believe. In any case, the message is clear. If you live in a place that still has a decent water supply, refill that bottle from the tap! If you want to weigh in on bottled water, do it here from now on.